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The town is one of the oldest cities of the country, and was named Goâve by the Amerindians. The Spanish called it Aguava at the end of the 16th century. After French colonization through the releasing of the Spanish, the French divided the city into two halves; Grand-Goâve and Petit-Goâve. Petit-Goâve became a wealthy settlement and briefly functioned as a de facto capital of the prosperous colony of Saint-Domingue. It is also very famous for its sweet candy called douce macoss.

It was significantly affected by the 12 January 2010 earthquake.[1] On 20 January a strong aftershock of magnitude 5.9 Mw struck Haiti.[2] The U.S. Geological Survey reported that its epicenter was almost exactly under Petit-Goâve. The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported that the magnitude of the aftershock was 6.1, but they later revised that figure to 5.9 [3]

Petit-Goâve has a hospital, Notre-Dame de Petit-Goâve.[9] In February 2010, this hospital was largely unusable due to damage from the earthquake. The Norwegian Red Cross ERU (Emergency Response Unit) has established their field hospital in the hospital and runs 2 fully equipped Operation Theaters and 2 ambulances with paramedics. Norwegian Red Cross support the hospital with electrical power, medical equipment and medicine.

On February 15, 2013, the US State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs announced that it would be funding and building a 150-bed prison in Petit-Goâve to replace the one destroyed in 2004 after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide[10]